The Story Of The Shot

This was taken on a recent trip to St. Ives in Cornwall, and was the only photo I really liked from the day. I was actually waiting outside while my wife was shopping, and I noticed this bird above me, and thought it would make an interesting shot. It was daylight, but a bit cloudy, so I chose a relatively low ISO of 200, and I shot in Aperture Priority mode (‘AV’ on my Canon camera). I shoot in this mode a lot, as I often want to control the depth of field in the shot, but, in this case, it didn’t really matter too much what aperture I used, as the background was the distant sky.

By using my telephoto lens ‘racked out’ to its longest focal length of 250mm, I managed to get pretty close to the bird, and I framed it so it was just to the right of the shot, with the wire creating a pleasing diagonal across the image. By increasing the contrast, and converting it to black and white in Photoshop, I think I’ve created quite a strong, impactful image – I especially like all the ‘white space’ in the shot, and how this deeply contrasts with the black bird.

Critique The Shot

What do you think of the photo? Write a comment below and let me know – all your thoughts are really appreciated.

I like this shot allot. Love the high contrast and the framing. A shot to be proud of and certainly one that should have acquired a damn site more comments. If you have a flickr account let me know I’d like to see more.

Hi Troy, thanks a lot for your kind comment! This is one of my fave shots, definitely. I do have a Flickr account, but I’m afraid to say I just don’t update it – too busy with this site and the site’s Facebook page too, really.